


Purim

by Judayre



Series: Jewish Hardison [3]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Drinking, F/M, Purim, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 14:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7687765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Judayre/pseuds/Judayre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hardison tells Parker the story of Purim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purim

**Author's Note:**

> Works best if you cast the story like this:  
> Ahasuerus - Hardison  
> Esther - Parker  
> Mordechai - Nate  
> Esther's servant who hangs with Mordechai - Eliot  
> Haman - Moreau (it can't be Sterling - I actually like Sterling)

ardison had clearly been drinking before he got to McRory’s, but he wasted no time grabbing a beer and settling in next to Parker. “Girl,” he slurred, “Imma tell you a story.”

Parker smiled at him. “I like stories. Does it have fighting and gold?”

“It does,” Hardison confirmed. “It all started a really long time ago.”

~~~

Ahasuerus was the king of Persia, and he was a young and attractive ruler. People loved him and he was the most powerful man around. He had a queen named Vashti - a bit older, but man was she fine. They the most powerful people in the world, Persia the most advanced kingdom around, life is good, baby.

So one day he having a party for diplomats from all over, and they talking up their countries, and badmouthing Persia all over the place. Ahasuerus calls for Vashti to dance for them naked, show what he has that they ain’t never gonna get. She refused! He divorced the bitch the next day.

~~~

Parker’s bottle clunked onto the table. “She wouldn’t dance naked, so he divorced her? Couldn’t have cared much about her at all.”

“Not about the dancing, woman. She didn’t do what he say.”

Her eyes narrowed. “A woman can’t say no to a man?” she asked, voice dangerous.

“She didn’t back his play! There they were, and everyone tryin’ to make out like he ain’t able to keep running his own damn country. What she do? Now they think he can’t even control his own damn wife. They gonna go home and get the armies all up in his face if he don’t do something and it all her fault!”

They had worked together on enough jobs that Parker nodded. You had to back your teammates’ plays and trust that they would back yours.

“Like I was sayin’,” Hardison continued after taking a long pull from his beer.

~~~

The counsellors, they didn’t like not having a queen. She was needed to make tiny baby monarchs and stuff. So they decided to hold a beauty pageant all over the country to find the best one.

~~~

“A beauty pageant? How does that show that someone’s good enough to be queen? What about economic plans and internal security and stuff?”

“I told you what her job was. Queen’s needed to make babies.”

Parker crossed her arms, frowning. “Looks don’t have anything to do with that either.”

“Girl, you don’t gotta tell me. But this was back when guys screwed sheep and shit. No accounting for smarts. Can I go on now?”

She nodded, motioning to the bartender for another drink.

“Cool. So, off in Babylon there a big community of Jews. No one likes them much, so they use aliases when they not working with each other. One of them’s this girl named Hadassah, but we gonna call her Esther. She an orphan, like us.” He clinked bottles with Parker and continued.

~~~

She was the most gorgeous girl ever, and smart too. Raised by a cousin name of Mordechai, and he taught her everything he knew. When he heard that every single girl had to join this beauty thing, he started thinking.

“You could do a lot of good as the queen,” he said, and made sure she won the contest in Babylon. Before she left for the capital, he told her not to let anyone know she was a Jew. “The King’s top adviser, Haman, is an Amalekite. He would poison the king against you if he knew.”

~~~

“Ama-what, now?”

“Amalekite,” Hardison said, holding the syllables. “Couple hundred years before this story, they got in a fight with the Jews and we whooped their ass. Bastards sure held a damn grudge.”

~~~

Contest finals were in the capital and Ahasuerus got to be the judge. He saw Esther and it was love at first sight, baby. He didn’t even see those other finalists. And she in love too. So they got married and she got her own palace and servants and they spent plenty of time working on those baby monarchs, if you know what I mean.

So one day, Esther looking out her window and she see Mordechai. One of her servants goes down and they have a good old time talking about Esther and Jews and laws and all that jazz, and the servant, he tell Mordechai he can’t come visit. Queen can’t be hanging out with some dude she not married to, and since Esther hiding her Jewishness and Mordechai not, it’s not like they can say they related. So Mordechai comes to the court every day so she can see him and gets to be good friends with the servant.

He not good friends with Haman, though. King’s main adviser hates Jews, and hates Mordechai the most. See, Haman think he the best ever and his ego is used to ruling Persia, ‘cause Ahasuerus became king when he was just a boy. Mordechai won’t bow down and lick his shoes, so Haman mad enough to spit.

Haman come up with a plan. He put out a notice from the king that all the Jews gonna be killed on a certain day.

~~~

“Now how did he do that?” Parker demanded, putting her empty bottle down among the others on the table in front of her and motioning for another.

“He lie to the king, of course,” Hardison answered, doing the same. “Say the Jews gonna kill him and don’t pay their taxes and are horrible mean people. Don’t say he gonna kill ‘em either. Ahasuerus trusts him, right? He a young man and stupid sometimes with someone he trusts.”

Parker blew out a laugh as she opened her next beer.

~~~

But see, Mordechai was working the long con. He knew something like this gonna happen eventually, so he sent the notice to Esther with a message sayin’ “it your time, girl.”

She sent back a message that they hadn’t counted on this stupid ass law that said even she couldn’t go see the king unless he called for her. Unless he stop them, the guards kill her where she stand.

Mordechai talk to her servant, who came back with the message “remember what we liked about. You can do this.”

She said she needed three days to get ready. She wanted all the Jews in the capital to fast and pray, and in the third day, she’d go see the king. “And if I perish, I perish.”

Three days later, she got all dolled up to look her best and went over to the court. Ahasuerus, he see her, and she look so fine that he can’t even think of letting the guards touch her. He ask what she want, say he’ll give her anything she wants.

Now this was dangerous. See, they didn’t know if he was in on it or if it was just Haman, and bringing something like genocide out in the middle of the court? Bad idea. So Esther, smartest girl ever, invites Ahasuerus and Haman to a party at her place the next night.

~~~

“She’s gonna have a party with someone who wants to kill her?”

“Oh, like you never done that.”

Parker shrugged, drinking.

~~~

Haman come to the party all relaxed. He thinkin’ he so powerful even the queen look up to him. So he eat and drink and has him a grand old time. Until the end of the night. Ahasuerus ask Esther what she want, offers her anything even half the kingdom.

Esther throw the notice at his feet and say “I want my life and the life of my people.”

Ahasuerus read the notice and he get so mad, man. And Haman, he realize Esther a Jew. But he can’t get out, ‘cause her servants there to keep him in check, and also he too drunk to get out on his own. Ahasuerus sentence him to immediate death in as many ways as he can think of, starting with some hanging.

They bring in Mordechai, who says “so, we good?”

But they’re not, because even a king can’t take back his own law. So Mordechai says “at least let us fight back.”

Ahasuerus impressed and make Mordechai the new chief adviser. And he send out a new notice that say the Jews can fight for their lives. Which they do. And this time they kill all the Amalekites, not just most of them.

~~~

“So this is about a holiday, right?” Parker asked at the end of the story. “What do you do for the holiday?”

“Get drunk,” Eliot answered, appearing next to their table. He swiped one arm, sending empty beer bottles crashing to the floor. The clatter of it sent Parker into peals of laughter.

“And eat cookies,” he added, setting down a plate of hamantaschen.

Hardison’s eyes lit up. “I thought you didn’t bake, man!”

“Just this once,” Eliot muttered, cheeks flushing.

Parker pulled him into a seat and shoved a cookie in his mouth, and then they were all laughing and drinking, enjoying a night of comfortable closeness.


End file.
